When it comes to work, no one is perfect, even if you routinely have glowing performance reviews.
Thinking about ways to improve your own performance should never be far from your mind at work. After all, good performance is never a constant, and if you’re not improving yours, your colleagues might be doing so instead!
When it comes to improving your performance, it’s hard to know where to start, as there are so many things to consider. This article discusses 20 great ways to improve your performance at work, including why they’re important and how you can leverage them to your advantage.
1. Delegate tasks wherever possible
When done correctly, delegation is win-win. If you delegate tasks to your colleagues or subordinates, you’re potentially giving them an opportunity to learn and to try something new. You might want to delegate tasks to allow yourself time to do the same.
By delegating work, you’re freeing yourself up for taking on additional responsibility or to develop new skills. Even the act of delegation can stretch your performance, through showing leadership traits and developing people in the right way.
When delegating, ensure you delegate the task and not the responsibility; this remains with you, whether the person successfully completes what they’ve been asked to or not.
2. Avoid multitasking
Multitasking might sound like the oldest way to get loads of work done and show off your organizational prowess to your manager but, in reality, it has been proven to impact performance through losing attention to detail, making mistakes and rushing work.
Instead, a better approach to work, and a great way to improve your performance, is to focus on only one task at a time. This means that you can devote all your energy to a particular job, ensuring it is completed to the best of your ability. You can communicate with the relevant stakeholders thoroughly, building lasting relationships at the same time.
3. Ask for feedback
There’s no better way to improve your work performance than asking for feedback. Don’t wait for performance reviews to ask for feedback. Use any opportunity you have to ask your manager how you’re doing, and also ask for occasional feedback after you complete a job.
Open questions such as “What could I have done differently here to take this to the next level?” will ensure you get high-value feedback to drive your performance forward. Be brave about accepting feedback. Often, it won’t be what you want to hear, but appreciate how you can use it for motivational effect and drive your performance forwards.
4. Set clear goals
Setting clear goals has been proven to be one of the best ways to improve your overall performance at work, with an early piece of research by Lock and Latham suggesting that, 90% of the time, challenging goals lead to performance improvement. This is because stretch goals ensure you remain laser-focused on what needs to be done at work.
The best goals to set are “SMART”: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. Plan your goals to ensure they are appropriate for you, can be quantified, and have a deadline. This way, you will drive your own performance while simply working on achieving your targets.
5. Use the right tools
Effective performance at work is reliant on you having the right tools and resources to do your job. Ensuring you use the right equipment, software, hardware and anything else that is needed allows you to focus on doing a great job, rather than adapting to a lack of resources or getting distracted trying to find what you need.
Ultimately, if you don’t have the right tools to do your job, then ask your manager what you need and why. Often, they’ll understand and provide what is required. Also, innovate: consider what new tools or different ways of working can drive your performance to the next level.
6. Embrace flexibility
It’s often said that, in today’s work environment, the only thing that stays the same is constant change. Flexibility drives the drivers that improve performance. Studies show that flexible workplaces have more loyal employees, higher productivity and lower absenteeism.
Embracing flexibility at work is challenging. It requires you to compromise, accommodate and move out of your comfort zone. However, the performance gains can be dramatic. You’ll become more agile, more assertive and perhaps faster at what you do. You’ll also be regarded as being reliable and a team player.
7. Limit distractions
At work, it’s easy to waste time. We’re surrounded by distractions, such as chatty coworkers, last-minute requests, social media and, of course, our phones. Whereas being a robot and not taking time out can impact performance negatively, limiting distractions can be a great way to improve it.
Taking regular breaks or setting a pattern like the Pomodoro technique (20 minutes of work followed by 5 minutes of rest) makes distractions less distracting. This can result in a higher work output and greater quality of work, too. Finally, keep your phone on silent and away from your line of sight!
8. Improve your time management
No matter how much you focus on your performance, you won’t make much headway if your time management needs attention.
Effective time management greases the wheels of performance. Managers will only give you more responsibility and trust if they perceive you to be reliable. Secondly, you can be the most high-performing worker ever, but if you’re persistently missing deadlines, it counts for little.
Find a time management system that works for you. This can be using a diary, Outlook or even just tracking tasks using sticky notes. Form rituals and patterns at work that you can follow without too much effort to keep yourself organized.
9. Prioritize important tasks
Prioritization is easier said than done, as there will be times where three different managers might all give you important tasks to complete. Effective prioritizing means that you focus your energy on the right tasks and are seen as dependable, assertive and smart with your time.
A good approach to prioritizing tasks at work to drive performance is the Eisenhower matrix, which calls for completing tasks based on urgency and importance. Ones that are urgent and important are top priority, followed by those that are urgent but not important. Next come tasks that are important but not urgent, with tasks that are not urgent or important obviously being last.
10. Build working relationships and connections
Networking is a professional superpower, and it has demonstrable impacts on your performance as well. The notion of “social capital” is linked to many performance benefits, including having the trust in your colleagues to put in extra effort at work.
Getting out and about to meet people, both inside and outside of your workplace, can enrich you in terms of your skills and abilities. You will learn new ways of doing things, share ideas and collectively solve problems.
Focus on building relationships by setting aside regular time in your diary for networking, building connections and socializing with key people.
11. Take breaks
Yes, taking regular breaks can have a massive positive impact on your performance! Breaks are healthy and can de-stress you, as well as declutter your mind. If you’re stuck on a challenging problem, then taking a few minutes for a stroll, a snack or to simply disconnect from your screen can be all that is needed for you to come up with the solution.
Breaks can also break up boredom, keeping you engaged and happy at work. Punctuate your working time with short breaks that you can use to maximize your performance and productivity. It might be the easiest item on this list to boost your performance!
12. Minimize stress
A little bit of workplace stress has been proven to actually be beneficial for performance, as it can focus us and keep us motivated, alert and detail-oriented. Nevertheless, when stress becomes too much, our performance suffers through burnout and overload and, regrettably, this sometimes results in ill health.
Understand your stress limit, and don’t be afraid to ask for help if you’re nearing it. Also, develop healthy coping mechanisms for excess stress, such as exercise, social time or focusing on a hobby. This helps you manage your reaction to stress and keeps you performing at your best.
13. Become more organized
Being more organized is a great way to boost your performance at work. By decluttering your workload, you’ll find more headspace to handle work and deal with it more positively. You’ll find yourself becoming increasingly effective at time management and following up, driving yourself for results and completing goals, and managing others too. These abilities don’t go unnoticed by managers.
An organized approach to work will keep you in control and will contribute to your focus at work. You will appear more organized to others and be able to keep track of work and deadlines, as well as tools and resources that you need.
14. Communicate effectively
Clear and effective communication is central to great performance at work. Good communication skills mean that you will interact with team members, customers and managers better, being able to articulate what you need and expect from others. This includes effective listening skills too.
When focusing on your communication, think about three main things. The words you use are critical to getting your message across, whereas tone ensures it’s understood and received in the right way. Of most importance, though, is body language, where most people’s impressions of you as an effective communicator will be made.
15. Continue learning
One of the best ways to improve your performance is to adopt a mindset of continuous professional development. When practicing CPD, always look for professional development opportunities, and reflect on your experiences to learn from these as well.
The benefits of professional development are that, over time, your performance will gradually and naturally improve as you take steps to learn about your profession, industry trends and hone your skills.
Ensure you evidence your learning on your résumé and keep a CPD diary so you can adopt a strategic, goal-oriented approach to training programs and opportunities. This can contribute to your performance increasing even faster.
16. Stay healthy
A healthy mind and a healthy body have many demonstrable impacts on work performance. A positive mindset means that you’ll have the cognitive capacity to perform strongly at work and adapt to any challenges that come your way.
Staying physically healthy is linked to strong job performance and excellent productivity. You’ll have more energy at work, be less distracted by illness or fatigue, and be viewed as dependable and reliable.
Implement healthcare elements and time into your routine, such as decent sleep, a balanced diet and regular time for exercise. Start with small health goals, and go from there.
17. Clear your workspace
A clean workplace ensures you can remain focused and organized at work, which are massive contributors to improving your performance. A clean desk means that you can find documents and appear more organized in front of others.
Clean workspaces are calming, productive and positive spaces to be, ensuring you’re engaged, focused and happy, enabling you to take your performance to the next level. Set up your workspace to positively influence you at work, such as bringing plants and some photos of loved ones. Also, ensure you have an optimal working setup such as an adjustable chair.
18. Manage your expectations
Whereas it doesn’t hurt to be optimistic at work, research shows that managing expectations also has a positive impact on performance, mostly through clearer expectations of performance and its link to effective goal setting.
Being realistic with yourself and others about what can be done will mean you’re not over-promising and under-delivering, ensuring performance grows through focusing on the right things.
Ensure you manage your expectations in terms of career development as well. Don’t be knocked by poor feedback or being snubbed for a job. Instead, take these moments as learning opportunities and use them to make you even stronger.
19. Learn to say “no”
Assertiveness goes a long way to improving your performance, and saying “no” is one of the best — and easiest — ways to do this.
Knowing how to say “no” means that you won’t be over-accommodating to people. If you’re busy, and someone comes to you with a task to work on, a simple line like “Apologies, but I currently have a few deadlines that are taking priority, but I could meet you to discuss this next week” is a polite way to refuse, while getting the message across.
By saying “no” effectively, you’ll be perceived as a respectable and confident employee who is in control of their priorities and tasks.
20. Determine your strengths and weaknesses
Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses can help you improve your performance, as you’ll be able to understand what high-performing areas you need to leverage and what areas you need to upskill. It displays a high level of self-awareness and it means that you can proactively manage your professional growth rather than waiting for others or external circumstances to do it for you.
A great way to determine your strengths and development areas is through conducting a personal SWOT analysis, where you not only reflect on strengths and weaknesses but the threats and opportunities to your competencies as well.
Final thoughts
Improving your performance at work doesn’t happen by accident. It requires hard work and an awareness of your skills, mental capacity, working environment and your relationships with others.
Whereas other people, especially managers, can guide you to improve your performance, this is an exercise best led by yourself, where people who take control over their own performance will be viewed positively by others, contributing to proactive performance gains and ultimately, plenty of career progression.
Got any other tips? Let us know in the comments section below!
This article is a complete update of an earlier version originally published on August 7, 2018.
